Abstract: Quantum computers are becoming larger every year, and are already today easily accessible thanks to different cloud-based services from companies such as IBM Quantum, Microsoft Azure, or Amazon Braket.  Increasing quantum computer sizes and computational abilities bring closer the potential for these computers to be able to generate novel solutions and results in chemistry, medicine, or material science, for example. However, as these computers promise to generate novel results and data, they will become targets of cyber attackers, who may want to steal information, influence the computation, or cause disruption to the operation of the quantum computers. The security threat-level is heightened by the fact that these computers are network-connected and are open to untrusted cloud users running malicious code on them. In this talk, we will present some of the first research on security evaluation of real, cloud-based quantum computers. We will first discuss potential “software” threats to quantum computers, by demonstrating insecurity of some of the basic gates, or operations, that are today available on the quantum computers. We will also demonstrate potential security threats considering future, multi-tenant use of the quantum computers where multiple users share a single quantum computer. The potential threats were found and evaluated by collecting data and running quantum programs on real, cloud-based quantum computers. The talk will also touch upon defenses we have proposed. In addition, the talk will aim to motivate the need to study cybersecurity of quantum computers and include security protections in their design. Today, large amounts of money and effort are put into development of bigger and more capable quantum computers, quantum software frameworks, and cloud infrastructures for these computers. Meanwhile, their security analysis and protections are lagging much behind.

 Bio: Prof. Jakub Szefer is currently an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Yale University, where he leads the Computer Architecture and Security Laboratory (CASLAB). Jakub’s research encompasses secure processor architectures, cloud and device security, fast implementation of post-quantum cryptographic algorithms, as well as quantum computer cybersecurity. Among others, Jakub is the author of first book focusing on processor architecture security: “Principles of Secure Processor Architecture Design”, published in 2018. Most recently, Jakub is a recipient of the 2021 Ackerman Award for Teaching and Mentoring from Yale University.